Sunday, November 8, 2009

Universal Soldier (1992)

Tagline: The future has a bad attitude.


Curiosity: Dolph Lundgren. ’Nuff said.


Plot: In 1969, Pvt. Luc Deveraux (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is a soldier in the Vietnam War trying to stop his commanding officer, Sgt. Andrew Scott (Lundgren), from going batshit crazy and killing everyone. He saves... nobody. After Deveraux and Scott kill each other, the government covers up the slaughter and carts their bodies back to America.


Skip 25 years into the future, and the duo have been revived for an experimental new military operation called the Universal Soldier Program. Nicknamed “Unisols,” they don’t feel pain, don’t ignore orders, and always get the job done. Furthermore, their memories have been wiped; they’re as close to machines as people can get (Almost… Terminator-like, wouldn’t you say?). Only there’s a problem: Old memories eventually crawl back into the soldiers’ heads. That means Luc goes back to being a good guy and tries to protect a journalist (Ally Walker) who’s uncovered the zombie-like secret of the Unisols, and Andrew, well, he goes crazy again and starts killing. A lot.


Thoughts: Lundgren again knocks it out of the park as the villainous Sgt. Scott. He’s slow and deliberate in his atrocities, siphoning pleasure out of every second. Plus, his height advantage over Van Damme makes for some interesting images (check out that poster!). Speaking of the Van Damminator, I’m begrudgingly becoming a fan of his work. Where Lundgren goes big, Van Damme is understated as Luc Deveraux, as if he’s just woken up. It furthers the contrast between the two characters, and lends itself to some funny scenes. Also, he shows his butt a lot, which starts to become endearing after a while, in a weird way.


Oh yeah, and there are plenty of punching and explosions.


Reflection: Good movie, but the very last line of dialogue is a massive continuity error. For shame!

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